


now would be a good time to be anyone but me

by anakatieskywalker



Series: Stephanie Brown, Third Robin [5]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25662796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakatieskywalker/pseuds/anakatieskywalker
Summary: Steph goes after the Black Mask. Things don't go the way she had planned.
Series: Stephanie Brown, Third Robin [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858975
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	now would be a good time to be anyone but me

It all started in the summertime, she spent the summer working with the Titans after the Young Justice team had gotten disbanded, and that had included a lot of city hopping. Which was fine. Crystal hadn’t been expecting to see her a ton during the summer, Steph was sixteen, she could take care of herself. 

That was the benefit of being a kid from Crime Alley that no one expected to come home or really amount to much. She could disappear for Robin related reasons for a few days, and no one would bother questioning it. At least, Steph used to think that was a benefit for Bruce when he’d agreed to hire her to the gig.

What Steph hadn’t planned on was how the amount of time she spent working with the team would affect her relationship with Bruce. Batman and Robin were supposed to be in sync, so that it could be bye, bye, bye to the bad guys. But ever since the summer ended, they had felt off, and a part of Steph wondered if Bruce regretted allowing Jason to pass her the mantle. 

That came to a head when she’d gotten a call for a mission with the team, and Bruce had snipped, “The mission is Gotham.” So he was mad, as far as she could tell. 

Part of Stephanie understood, Batman was created to scare some of the creeps out of Gotham and to protect the city from what the cops couldn’t. People like her dad. Robin’s job was to back up Batman, to distract and incapacitate thugs so that maybe there would be a little bit more peace at night.

Robin was meant for Gotham, for Batman, not for running around with a bunch of super-powered teenagers.

So she’d had a peak at Batman’s files, well, not really a peak. She was allowed to look at most of them, but she wasn’t studying their cases. Rather, she was looking for something she could do to prove to Bruce that she was still with him. She was Robin, Robin belonged in Gotham, and Robin helped take out the bad guys. 

A pretty simple train of thought there, she wanted to do something big to show her loyalty. And what could possibly be bigger than bringing in the latest criminal to join Gotham’s higher ranks, Black Mask, also known as Roman Sionis.

That really hadn’t worked out well.

Steph was willing to be the first one to admit, this was not her ideal situation. Then again, she couldn’t really think of anyone who’s ideal situation _would_ be being tortured by the Black Mask. 

However, she’d gotten herself into this pickle. That’s right, Stephanie Brown: the third Robin, the blonde Robin, the girl Robin; label it what you will, was in trouble. Really, it shouldn’t be surprising, she was known for having a stubborn streak a mile wide. 

Steph was pretty sure she’d broken the previous two Robins’ records for getting benched for not listening in the field. But in her defense, she usually had a good reason for not following Batman’s orders. For the last few days though, she’s been having trouble remembering what her great excuse for going after Black Mask was in the first place.

Sionis had said that he was going to use her to teach a lesson to the Bat. That was a few years ago, and everything aches so bad, it’s more like her whole body is throbbing with pain every time her heart beats. If the guy asked her, she’d gladly tell him that the message has been received, can she go home now? It’s Thanksgiving Break.

Her mom would kill her when they found her, _if_ they found her. Black Mask was proving to be a more than formidable opponent, and she’s not sure why she thought she could take him on by herself in the first place. She just… Steph really wanted to prove to Bruce that she was still in it, for Gotham.

Now she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be around, before someone found her body in the bowels of Crime Alley. That is, if the Black Mask even had the decency to dump her body there, if he dropped her in some richer part of Gotham, she’d likely be just another Jane Doe for weeks. In Crime Alley, Batman could find her, her mom could find her. 

The way things were going, she was pretty sure that was the only way anyone would ever find her again. It would have been a really good time to be anyone else in the world. Everything hurt, Sionis was horribly good at the torture thing, and really she probably should have read his file more closely.

She didn’t think anyone besides the Joker was willing to hurt Robin like this, turns out she was wrong. She hoped that Bruce would understand why she’d done it, the number one thing Steph craved in her role as Robin was his approval. She’d really thought this was how she could win it, by pushing herself to show that she was capable in a way that she hadn’t done since her early days on the job.

Steph hoped this wouldn’t hurt Bruce or her mom too much, neither of them deserved to feel pain like this because of her. She thought the same about the boys, Tim was her friend in and outside of the business, and a little bit more depending on what you knew about their relationship. He was probably the only person in the world that knew everything there was to know about her, and she hoped he wouldn’t think that he could have stopped her.

Then there was Jason and Dick, the two that had passed down their mantle to her, made her part of a family that wasn’t branded with a criminal history. They were her brothers in all but blood, and she hadn’t been able to spend as much time as she wanted with them recently. They were both off doing their own thing, Dick was out in Bludhaven, working as Nightwing and in the police department, and Jason had been working as the Cardinal. 

The three of them were supposed to have a movie marathon once it was Christmas break. They’d planned to binge holiday movies, and have a snowball fight outside of the manor, and to drink all the hot chocolate that Alfred would allow. Then they would team up on patrols like they had in the old days. 

It was going to be epic, but she was fairly certain that wouldn’t happen now. Man, she was going to miss Alfred’s hot chocolate.

She hoped they would all get through this, and that someone would remember to tell her friends on the Titans. Steph wished, in that moment, that she could have been anybody else. But mostly, she hoped it would stop hurting once she closed her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> [hit me up on tumblr!!](https://thatsuperherosidekick.tumblr.com/)


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